Concept of god in hindhuism and islamDr zakir nayik vs sri sri ravishankar.Bangalore 2006. Tamil video?

Answer 1

Let's first see what is Hinduism before answering about Gods in Hinduism. There are unconfirmed and unproven theories that Persians used to call people of Sindhu river basin as Hindus. I have read many articles and historical writings on Indian history

and no one has confidence in telling exactly how this word originated. One strong reason why history of hiduism is not known much is that it is very old.

Some historians argue that Hinduism had already reached its peak in India around 5000 BC. And also it must have started around 8000 BC.

Hindus were tribal people in India and present day Pakistan. Tribes have their own way of worshipping god. Tribes usually worship anything or anyone capable of scaring the tribes. For e.g tribals worhip snakes, lions, elephants and so on as these animals are

much more powerful than humans. And Hindus have written a voluminous epic, the Ramayana about a king who was very powerful compared to ordinary humans.

Hinduism is not a religion like Christianity and Islam. Hinduism is not a God centric or holy man centric religion. Even an Atheist can be a Hindu.

Hinduism is a way of life. It is like a legal system applicable to any human society. The rules in Hinduism are like common sense rules such as you should not steal someone else property, you should not torture women, you should not consume alcohol, should not eat non-vegetarian food, you should not have sex with your teacher and male teacher's wife and so on.

Although the original Hindu tribal cultures of worshipping fear inducing creatures is still in practice even among civilized educated class, a whole new dimension was given to spirituality with discovery of mantras by sages who contributed these mantras to Vedas. Veda mantras (hymns) were discovered for specific purposes such as creating fire, bringing rain and so on. However these mantras have to be pronounced in proper ways. That's the reason why reading a mantra written in a book will not bring same result as chanting it in specific rhythms. Hence Hindus did not find it useful to invent script for long time as you cannot write the rhythm of mantra pronounciation.

Rg Veda is the oldest Veda. It seems to have originated before 4000BC and the written Rg Veda dates back to about 1500BC according to modern historians. There is a long history of Vedas and Vyasa seems to have written "Brahmasutras" that is the single text in Hindu spiritual writings dedicated to explaining God.

Brahmasutras are in sanskrit and are very difficult to interpret. Acharyas such as Shankaracharya, Ramanuja and Madhva wrote their commentaries on Brahmasutras. As of today the commentaries of Shankaracharya on Brahmasutras are the oldest record available.

Brahmasutras start with explaining what are the characteristics of a person who is interested in pursuing quest for God. It then goes on saying "what is not God" rather than saying what is God. At the end of Brahmasutras you'll realize that God can be known only by a person who has realized God !!!!. Also God cannot be explained in words. Anything you say about God is bound to be false as you have not experienced it. You cannot even say that God is not realizable or knowable!!!!!!. This is a bit confusing as most of the other religions talk about what God is and also say that ordinary people cannot realize God. However Vedic Hindu religion strongly propose this idea that anyone can realize become God. This means that anyone can become Jesus Christ!!!!.

The best book I have read about what it takes to become a person Like Jesus Christ is "The Mystique of Enlightenment" about U G Krishnamurthy. This book explains the spiritual experiences of U G Krishnamurthy as he becomes enlightened. You could download this book from

http://www.well.com/user/jct/

So it is clear that anyone can become enlightened and realize God. That no one person is specially chosen for this task by nature. UG says what prevents you from becoming enlightened is the thought that you are not enlightened and search for enlightenment.

To me it looks like this entire universe including stars, planets, galaxies, quasars and so on put together including our solar system and human beings is considered as God by God realized men.

Happy Reading

Lakshminarasimha Sharma

Bangalore, India